Issue no 7 Speculation

The 7th issue of PARSE addresses art and design practices under a condition in which financial speculation and populist political visions sit uncomfortably with modes of critical action in probing alternative futures.

Speculation has been suspect for its correlation with the logic of financial markets and dynamics of capital within which arts and design practices em- bedded. But speculation is also a characteristic of utopian thinking and revolutionary prefigurement.

Could ‘speculation’ in artistic practices be regarded as revitalising and redefining what risk and wealth can mean, what agency can be? Could speculation be related to the creation of possibilities, rather than to the abstract logic of probabilities?